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I built a UniFi network 6 or 7 years ago. I was pretty excited, as the hardware seemed properly solid. A touch expensive, but I was expecting it to run forever,

I built a UniFi network 6 or 7 years ago. I was pretty excited, as the hardware seemed properly solid. A touch expensive, but I was expecting it to run forever, essentially. The hardware was actually really good from what I could tell. Not a single issue that wasn't caused by my own misconfiguration. But the software, woof. The software was designed to do exactly one thing: look impressive to execs in a board meeting. It was nearly unusable for me. I don't recall any specifics, but all you really need to know is that it took multiple days to get a simple home network with a single AP and a single router set up. It was so much effort just to log in to the damn thing. I went into this project excited at the prospect of all the cool monitoring and analytics I could do. Fancy security and remote access and whatnot. After I finally got everything configured, I never touched it again. There were a few times when I needed or wanted to get into it, but I couldn't remember the specific incantation and combination of software needed to access it, so I just didn't. I'd love to have a solid system built on quality hardware. UniFi is notionally exactly what I want, and exactly what a lot of hackers and tinkerers want. But the quality of your hardware is pretty much irrelevant if your software wasn't designed to be used by humans. So I'm stuck using consumer routers with open firmware. It's fine I guess.

riley_dog 3y ago
I run OPNsense, but use UniFi hardware. I rarely ever have to interact with the UniFi software as it's only there to configure the hardware.
- aftbit 3y ago
  OPNsense can target UniFi gear? Does it manage the switching and APs too?
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    You use OPNsense as the router, but the rest of the equipment is managed separately. I don't know of a system that works across multiple SDN solutions.
  - teekert 3y ago
    I don't think riley_dog means they somehow controls Unify APs with opnsense. I think he just configured the APs with the Unify controller, the never touched them again and left all routing to an opnsense box. This seems to be a popular approach, as there are no attractive routers from Unify, there was the Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway (USG), which ran very hot but was affordable and small (EdgeRouterX-like). Now they have the Dreamrouter, which has everything in one, including Wifi. It looks like an Alexa tube. There is a gap in their offering if you ask me, I'm also looking for a nice simple 2 nic opnsense box (preferably a nuc(-like)), after I blew up my EdgeRouterX (used the wrong power supply).
letitbeirie 3y ago
My situation is basically the other side of the same coin: I built out my network 7 years ago using Edge gear instead of UniFi. The hardware is solid and the software isn't flashy but it's reliable. It's exactly what hackers and tinkerers want, so naturally Ubiquiti has all but abandoned the entire product line. They haven't discontinued it (yet) so I could still replace any piece of it if I needed to but their software version history doesn't exactly paint a picture of a product that's cherished or actively invested in: 2019/03/28: v2.0.1 2019/05/30: v2.0.3 2019/06/25: v2.0.4 2019/07/16: v2.0.6 2019/12/04: v2.0.8 2020/03/09: v2.0.8-hotfix1 2020/11/18: v2.0.9 2021/02/02: v2.0.9-hotfix1 2021/06/13: v2.0.9-hotfix2 2022/07/17: v2.0.9-hotfix4 2022/12/20: v2.0.9-hotfix5 2023/01/22: v2.0.9-hotfix6 2023/07/31: v2.0.9-hotfix7
- panopticon 3y ago
  My EdgeRouter finally bit the dust after over a decade of service, and I decided to "upgraded" to a Dream Machine. I was hesitant due to the security breaches and now I really regret my decision.
  - favorited 3y ago
    UDMs are discounted right now for the holidays. I'm in the process of migrating my home networking/server stuff into a rack, and I was tempted to pick one up because my current little PFSense box isn't particularly rack-friendly. This thread is cooling my heels a bit.
  - snom380 3y ago
    You can run your Dream Machine without cloud access, though?
    - panopticon 3y ago
      You can, yes. The bigger problem is that I also bought into their Protect products at the same time. And you lose a ton of functionality if you turn off cloud access. I'm going to try to replicate notifications and stuff using Home Assistant and shut off the remote access completely, but I might as well have purchased a cheaper and better NVR + camera setup if I need to set up all of this stuff myself anyway...
BitPirate 3y ago
Ubiquitis Unifi controllers and the TP-Links clone called Omada always remind me of the glory days of the NoSQL fad. Want to install our software? Please add a third-party mongodb repository to install an obsolete version. They can't handle version upgrades of their own database properly, but hey! At least it's web-scale.
- smileybarry 3y ago
  They also need a 32-bit version. The actual, easiest solution to appliance-ify Unifi OS was to take some "run it on your Raspberry Pi!" guide and convert the instructions to Debian 32-bit.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    The real easiest solution is to use a third party docker container
    - smileybarry 3y ago
      True, but I don't actually trust it. And the last time I tried manually building it, it didn't entirely work.
    - donmcronald 3y ago
      That's changed for some of them recently. The linuxserver.io container for 'unifi-controller' was deprecated in favor of 'unifi-network-application' [1] so they could quit bundling MongoDB. There's not much value there anymore IMO because it's no simpler than running standalone in a VM at that point. At least with a VM I can shut it down, snapshot it, block incoming network access for everything but a canary deployment, update it, wait for my canary to come up properly, and then let everything else hit it. That gives the option of a rollback which is much harder with Docker. I say that as someone using 'linuxserver.io/unifi-controller' which was a mistake I guess. 1. https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/unifi-network-application https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/unifi-network-applicati...
    - b7we5b7a 3y ago
cyode 3y ago
> 6 or 7 years ago...it took multiple days to get a simple home network with a single AP and a single router set up. I just tried the same thing last week and it took an hour (half of that was mounting it to my ceiling). I only set up a WAP though, no controller.
tinix 3y ago
pcengines apu platform is great if you're comfortable with command line. they are EOL now (no new hardware updates) but doing the same thing with any Linux box is trivial... plenty of off the shelf options for modular hardware.

riley_dog 3y ago

I run OPNsense, but use UniFi hardware. I rarely ever have to interact with the UniFi software as it's only there to configure the hardware.

aftbit 3y ago
OPNsense can target UniFi gear? Does it manage the switching and APs too?
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  You use OPNsense as the router, but the rest of the equipment is managed separately. I don't know of a system that works across multiple SDN solutions.
- teekert 3y ago
  I don't think riley_dog means they somehow controls Unify APs with opnsense. I think he just configured the APs with the Unify controller, the never touched them again and left all routing to an opnsense box. This seems to be a popular approach, as there are no attractive routers from Unify, there was the Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway (USG), which ran very hot but was affordable and small (EdgeRouterX-like). Now they have the Dreamrouter, which has everything in one, including Wifi. It looks like an Alexa tube. There is a gap in their offering if you ask me, I'm also looking for a nice simple 2 nic opnsense box (preferably a nuc(-like)), after I blew up my EdgeRouterX (used the wrong power supply).

letitbeirie 3y ago

My situation is basically the other side of the same coin: I built out my network 7 years ago using Edge gear instead of UniFi. The hardware is solid and the software isn't flashy but it's reliable. It's exactly what hackers and tinkerers want, so naturally Ubiquiti has all but abandoned the entire product line. They haven't discontinued it (yet) so I could still replace any piece of it if I needed to but their software version history doesn't exactly paint a picture of a product that's cherished or actively invested in: 2019/03/28: v2.0.1 2019/05/30: v2.0.3 2019/06/25: v2.0.4 2019/07/16: v2.0.6 2019/12/04: v2.0.8 2020/03/09: v2.0.8-hotfix1 2020/11/18: v2.0.9 2021/02/02: v2.0.9-hotfix1 2021/06/13: v2.0.9-hotfix2 2022/07/17: v2.0.9-hotfix4 2022/12/20: v2.0.9-hotfix5 2023/01/22: v2.0.9-hotfix6 2023/07/31: v2.0.9-hotfix7

panopticon 3y ago
My EdgeRouter finally bit the dust after over a decade of service, and I decided to "upgraded" to a Dream Machine. I was hesitant due to the security breaches and now I really regret my decision.
- favorited 3y ago
  UDMs are discounted right now for the holidays. I'm in the process of migrating my home networking/server stuff into a rack, and I was tempted to pick one up because my current little PFSense box isn't particularly rack-friendly. This thread is cooling my heels a bit.
- snom380 3y ago
  You can run your Dream Machine without cloud access, though?
  - panopticon 3y ago
    You can, yes. The bigger problem is that I also bought into their Protect products at the same time. And you lose a ton of functionality if you turn off cloud access. I'm going to try to replicate notifications and stuff using Home Assistant and shut off the remote access completely, but I might as well have purchased a cheaper and better NVR + camera setup if I need to set up all of this stuff myself anyway...

BitPirate 3y ago

Ubiquitis Unifi controllers and the TP-Links clone called Omada always remind me of the glory days of the NoSQL fad. Want to install our software? Please add a third-party mongodb repository to install an obsolete version. They can't handle version upgrades of their own database properly, but hey! At least it's web-scale.

smileybarry 3y ago
They also need a 32-bit version. The actual, easiest solution to appliance-ify Unifi OS was to take some "run it on your Raspberry Pi!" guide and convert the instructions to Debian 32-bit.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  The real easiest solution is to use a third party docker container
  - smileybarry 3y ago
    True, but I don't actually trust it. And the last time I tried manually building it, it didn't entirely work.
  - donmcronald 3y ago
    That's changed for some of them recently. The linuxserver.io container for 'unifi-controller' was deprecated in favor of 'unifi-network-application' [1] so they could quit bundling MongoDB. There's not much value there anymore IMO because it's no simpler than running standalone in a VM at that point. At least with a VM I can shut it down, snapshot it, block incoming network access for everything but a canary deployment, update it, wait for my canary to come up properly, and then let everything else hit it. That gives the option of a rollback which is much harder with Docker. I say that as someone using 'linuxserver.io/unifi-controller' which was a mistake I guess. 1. https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/unifi-network-application https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/unifi-network-applicati...
  - b7we5b7a 3y ago

cyode 3y ago

> 6 or 7 years ago...it took multiple days to get a simple home network with a single AP and a single router set up. I just tried the same thing last week and it took an hour (half of that was mounting it to my ceiling). I only set up a WAP though, no controller.

tinix 3y ago

pcengines apu platform is great if you're comfortable with command line. they are EOL now (no new hardware updates) but doing the same thing with any Linux box is trivial... plenty of off the shelf options for modular hardware.